S&P 500 Heads for Seventh Weekly Gain as Health-Care Shares Rise

Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks rose, putting the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index on track for a seventh weekly advance, after the pace of hiring increased and drugmakers rallied on favorable decisions by European regulators.

Health-care stocks in the S&P 500 jumped 1.1 percent, led by Biogen Idec Inc. and Gilead Sciences Inc. Time Warner Cable Inc. surged 7.6 percent on renewed takeover speculation. United Continental Holdings Inc. climbed 3.1 percent after billionaire David Tepper said his "big play in the market" is airlines. Ross Stores Inc. plunged 7.5 percent, the most in the S&P 500, after cutting its earnings forecast.

The S&P 500 advanced 0.3 percent to 1,801.12 at 1:39 p.m. in New York. The U.S. equity benchmark is on pace to rise 0.2 percent this week for the longest winning streak since February. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 11.27 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 16,021.26. Trading in S&P 500 shares was 9 percent below its 30-day average during this time of the day.

"I don’t see any reason why the market shouldn’t go up," Karyn Cavanaugh, a vice president and market strategist at ING U.S. Investment Management in New York, said in a phone interview. Her firm oversees $196 billion. "There’s not really any bad news. We have a little bit of a pullback and then people jump in and say, ’Hey, I want a piece of this.’"

Tepper, the hedge-fund manager who runs Appaloosa Management LP, said stock markets are not inflated as economies in the U.S., Europe and China are on "firm ground." He said that while he remains bullish on U.S. stocks, markets may fall 5 percent to 10 percent when the Fed curbs its stimulus program.

Bubble Talk

"I know there’s talk about bubbles, this is not one," Tepper said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Stephanie Ruhle at the Robin Hood Investors Conference in New York yesterday.

Job openings in the U.S. climbed to a five-year high in September, indicating employers were confident about demand before the federal government shutdown. The report showed the number of people hired increased to 4.59 million in September, the most since August 2008, from 4.56 million. The hiring rate rose to 3.4 percent from 3.3 percent in August.

The S&P 500 rallied yesterday after three days of losses as data showed weekly jobless claims fell to the lowest level since September and a confidence survey indicated American consumers became less pessimistic this month. The Dow average has climbed 0.4 percent this week, headed for its seventh straight weekly gain, the longest streak since January 2011.

Market Tailwinds

"It’s hard to ignore all the tailwinds to this market," Chris Bouffard, chief investment officer of the Mutual Fund Store in Overland Park, Kansas, which oversees $8.5 billion, said in a phone interview. "We’ve got low oil, that’s definitely helping consumers, especially going into the key holiday spending period. Buybacks and dividends are doing very well."

Economic stimulus from the Fed has helped the S&P 500 soar 166 percent since its March 2009 low. The gauge traded for about 17 times its companies’ reported earnings at its last record on Nov. 15, the highest valuation since May 2010.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, the gauge of S&P 500 options known as the VIX, slid 2.1 percent today to 12.39. The measure is down 31 percent this year.

United Continental rose 3.1 percent to $38.24. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. also lifted its rating on the world’s biggest airline to buy from neutral.

Takeover Talk

Time Warner Cable jumped 7.6 percent to $129.99. Comcast Corp. is weighing a bid for the company, a deal that would unify the largest cable providers in the U.S., according to two people with knowledge of the situation. Comcast doesn’t see insurmountable regulatory obstacles to the transaction, since the companies don’t overlap in many regions, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private.

Biogen Idec surged 13 percent to $284.15, the biggest gain in more than two years. The company’s multiple sclerosis drug Tecfidera won designation as a "new active substance" in Europe, giving it added protection against generic copies and paving the way for approval there. The pill is projected to be the company’s top-seller by 2015.

Gilead rallied 3.9 percent to a record $74.44. The drug company received a positive recommendation for its hepatitis C treatment from the European Medicines Agency.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. climbed 6 percent to $293.16. An experimental rheumatoid arthritis drug the company is developing with Sanofi eased symptoms and damage caused by the disease in a clinical trial, advancing its prospects to compete in the market.

Stock Movers

Foot Locker Inc. rallied 5 percent to $38.59. The largest U.S. athletic shoe retailer posted third-quarter earnings of 68 cents a share, exceeding the average analyst estimate by 2 cents.

Ross Stores tumbled 6.1 percent to $75.33 for the biggest decline in the S&P 500. The retailer of discount designer wear lowered its forecast for fourth-quarter earnings to no more than $1.01 a share, after previously predicting as much as $1.03. That fell short of the average analyst estimate of $1.08.

Gap Inc. fell 1.8 percent to $41.10. The biggest U.S. specialty-apparel retailer maintained its annual profit forecast range, signaling that the holiday-shopping quarter may fall short of analysts’ estimates.

Intel Corp. lost 5.2 percent to $23.92. The world’s largest maker of semiconductors said revenue will be approximately unchanged in 2014. The company predicts the personal-computer market, measured by units, to be down in the ‘low single-digit’ percent, Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith said.